The Generous Man

Thomas Cannon with Cal Fussman

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It may well be that my life's mission was to be the poor man's philanthropist. In the last twenty-eight years, I've given away $124,000--the majority in checks of $1,000. A lot of folks think I'm a wacko. But it never would have been the same if I'd been wealthy. Because then people would've said, "Oh, well, he can afford it." The impact of my life is that I've never had much to give away.

I grew up so poor that we had to spell the word p-o-r because we couldn't afford the second o. My father died when I was three, and I dropped out of school in seventh grade to help support the family. I've never earned more than my salary as a postal clerk.

The incident that set off the philanthropy came in 1972, when I read about an organization of white women in Richmond that had adopted a black elementary school as a project. They bought supplies, took the kids to museums and on field trips, and did other things to enrich them. I wrote them a check for $1,000.

The striking thing about it was how easy it was to give the money away. I felt, when I could spare it, I'd continue. I sent a check to the widow of a police officer who'd been killed and another to the penitentiary to buy things for inmates. I rewarded people who performed heroic deeds and people who were ill. Almost every gift came after I'd been moved by a story in the local newspaper.

People started sending me letters asking for money. Some wrote without even knowing my name. They'd address envelopes to "The Black Guy Who Gives Away Money and Lives in the Ghetto." Or "The Money Man. You Know Who He Is." The post office knew where to find me.

Despite all I've given away, my family had all its basic needs met and more. My wife and I were married for fifty-three years before she passed. As you can imagine, I've been asked countless times what she thought about all this. In her deeper recesses, I can't say. But she loved people, too, and I never heard a word of negativity. My two sons had grown up by the time the philanthropy started.

Fact is, I was always concerned about my livelihood. I planned to cut the philanthropy off when I retired. At that point, my postal clerk's salary was slashed in half. But before retiring, I wanted to express my admiration to a legless Vietnam veteran, a wheelchair marathoner. I tried to track him down but couldn't get his address. Never could send him the check. So I stopped the philanthropy for about six years. Then I opened the paper and read that the same man was being honored.

That six-year break had given me time to accumulate a little money. So I pulled out my checkbook again in 1990 and sent a check to that vet, and I haven't stopped since. I sent money to a blind homeless man along with a note telling him to get his dog a steak. Once, right before Christmas, I boarded a bus full of workers and gave everyone an envelope with a holiday greeting and fifty dollars. Afterward, the driver said they were dancing in the aisles.

I even wrote a check for $1,000 to a millionaire philanthropist who'd done great things for Richmond. People don't appreciate it when a wealthy person gives money. They'll say his generosity is a tax dodge. I say, as a human, he should be appreciated. You know what that millionaire did? He photocopied my check, framed it, and hung it on his wall. Then he sent the check back to me so I could give it to an elderly woman who was having a hard time.

Five years ago, a local developer named Gary W. Fenchuk started a benefit fund for me, and the first thing he did with the money was buy me a furnished home in a good neighborhood. I couldn't turn down the offer--I'd have been the biggest kind of hypocrite. You have to be able to receive as well as give. The people who joke that I shouldn't read the newspaper anymore overlook the fact that I've gotten back more than I put into it.

To many people, money is God. Of course, money is useful and necessary, but like everything else in the material world, it's only temporary. We're all moving toward termination, and in the end the millionaire and the pauper are both reduced to dust. All that we value in this world, all that we fight over and kill for, is worthless. In the end, you have only what you've learned from life.

Right now, my savings account is almost at rock bottom, less than $1,000. But when I saw a story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch not long ago, I felt compelled to respond. A native of Micronesia, father of five, was working as a handyman out in the suburbs. An apartment building nearby caught fire, and people were screaming from an upstairs window. The handyman grabbed his ladder, climbed up, saved two women and a child. He had a family to care for, and yet he was willing to risk death to save lives. It doesn't come any bigger than that.

I counted up my money. I felt I could risk one more gift, so I wrote him a check. Like I say, maybe I couldn't have stopped if I wanted to. I may be doomed to be the poor man's philanthropist. But you know something? I still buy Lotto tickets, hoping to hit the jackpot.